So a while back, I started roleplaying with oroku-karai on tumblr (run by the incredibly, ridiculously multi-talented jasjuliet). And this was the result. As with all other roleplays, what you're reading is an entirely unplanned, call-and-response dialogue on tumblr. We're currently not really consulting on what happens or what comes next. As such, this is the organic, raw, unedited version of something that suddenly became very, very magical.
All you really need to know about Leo at this point is that this is the same Leo from Falling. He fell through a rift in time and space into the roleplay world on tumblr, and he's been out of Falling and in the other world for a long time now, and over time, he has been able to see (and move to) more and more worlds in his head (this is NOT normal, and there is a reason for it, which I haven't revealed yet). Because of that, he has now encountered many different versions of his family, and been adopted by Shard (see Shards of a Memory if you don't know who she is yet). Leo himself has never met Karai, since he left his family just before I, Monster, though he's heard about her from the others.
All of Karai's parts are written by jasjuliet. All of Leo's parts are written by me. It takes place just after Karai's Vendetta.
She'd found him.
Leonardo's familiar silhouette hurdling from rooftop to rooftop had once been a source of feverish excitement for the girl. Sentenced to a childhood in the company of brooding shinobi, she'd learned to take advantage of mischief where she could make it. Unexpectedly so, Leo quickly became a promise of good fun and merry chase exclusive to her as they crossed swords under the pretense of angry fathers.
Their play was dangerous, yes, but they had been honed into dangerous children.
She reached for her blade. Karai supposed she should've expected the most recent turn of events.
She didn't want to fight with him anymore.
But tonight, she'd been given orders and warning. Failure in rapid succession left Karai under the precarious place of the Shredder's scrutiny. Coming home empty-handed was no longer an option, but Karai still hesitated to launch herself off the ledge after the boy.
Their truce seemed rather fragile, short-lived in the face of a feud spanning their lifetimes. She'd called it 'friendship' in haste, and wouldn't make the same mistake again.
The only acceptable response to the sight of Hamato Leonardo was hostility.
She stared intently after him, but did not feel the malice rise.
Instead, Karai shut down these thoughts, considering them useless to her task. She halved the distance between them with a speed inspired by the desire to finish things, and when Karai swung her sword, it came down in heavy, looping blows that jarred her to the shoulder. She did not remove her mask. There wasn't a smile for Leonardo beneath it tonight.+
Leo had needed to run. He adored his siblings, he truly did. But twenty one siblings — he thought, he wasn't even really sure anymore — more or less under the same roof had driven him topside in a desperate search for a moment or two of quiet. So he ran. Abandoning thought, and reason, and worry, abandoning himself to the moment of freefall as he leaped between rooftops, the closest a turtle would ever come to flying. And in those moments, he could almost forget how desperately he was starting to miss his own brothers.
He smiled a little sadly as the moonlight caught the flash of purple in the mask woven into the wrappings at his wrist. He'd been lucky, terribly lucky that the rift had dumped him in Donnie's lap. He would have been dead a few times over without Donnie, and yet the rift had given him a home and a family — a large family — instead. And he was grateful. He was. He loved each and every one of them to pieces. But he missed home.
The melancholy wasn't like him. He told himself later that it was the only reason his attacker managed to get the drop on him. It was still inexcusable, but it was a reason, at least. He whirled just in time to get a katana up to block, and as he fended off the heavy blows, he grit his teeth in annoyance. He really was not in the mood to fight tonight.
"I don't— know who — you are," he spat between blows. "But you picked — a really — bad time."
His words were minced between the slithering clash of steel on steel as Karai's charge gained momentum. With a heavy-handed strike, however, she found her wakizashi's path halted at the apex of crossed katana, Leonardo's grim expression sectioned off into three.
Her arms shook, but she bore down harder and forced the familiar stalemate to last a few seconds longer than necessary.
He was lying. Had to be. Karai's gaze narrowed as she searched his eyes, but she couldn't deny a difference much too subtle to place.
A moment more and the kunoichi dislodged her blade from the trifecta with an unceremonious grunt as she sprung several feet backward, an angry hand clapped to her mask.
"Enough!"
It clattered to the ground as Karai brandished her weapon and gestured emphatically to Leonardo's throat.
"Refusing to acknowledge me won't dull the edge of my blade."
She could feel her breath coming in hard, furious pants that did nothing to improve her focus. Even the doubt throbbing like a warning siren in her skull could not temper her anger. Their fight at the docks had been interrupted much too abruptly and her earlier reservations were slipping fast.
"Say it again."
I dare you.
